Sim Lag - scripts etc?

OK my turn to ask a question I guess, hoping you all can shed some light on this for me. I bought a fair amount of land on a new sim, built my abode there etc etc. The sim was at probably 80% capacity and lag free - seriously - it was the one place I and all my friends could go and count on being able to move at a normal pace and not have massive packet loss and lag. Sadly, I didn’t think ahead and secure every single parcel around me, I stopped at just over 8ksqm thinking that was a pretty good buffer zone - now a mid size casino has bought the property right next to me despite several other locations that would have been just as suitable, away from me (I know its all about me isn’t it).

Anyway, the day they brought their machines in, is the day the sim died essentially. Now even I with a decent computer can’t stand to be there due to the extreme lag, and forget about any of my friends coming over anymore since they have massive packet loss and constant crashing or being stuck now. And working on my builds, projects etc are a real pain as well since the performance is so incredibly bad there, things jump, don’t respond etc or get stuck in some weird twilight zone where nothing actually saves and I have the timer dealie stuck on my mouse pointer (this has a real big one).

Is there anything I can do? I don’t really run many scripts aside from 3 sets of doors and 8 fire scripts (fireplaces, lanterns etc, a crow and the jet on the roof ). I am at a loss and it seems like at this point the only way I will escape this is to sell and move once again (which will make the third time in my short SL existence). Which, really kinda bums me out because I have put a fair amount of equity both sweat and monetary into making a nice place to hang out and work on projects etc, and its on top of a hill, which is something I have wanted since the day I discovered - I too could have land...The only other thing I can think to do is get my own sim – but man that is some serious cash and even tho I could probably recoup some of it with rentals and business – I really just wanted a place to hang out and work on my projects and that’s a darn high price for such.

Anyway, any suggestions would be great on how I can deal with the sudden barrage of scripts running within listening distance. I keep thinking there must be something that I can put on the parameter of the prop to act as a shield or barrier or something - some sort of no listening past here kind of deal but I don’t know enough about scripting yet to even consider if this is a remote possibility.

Wow...that is incredibly bad luck.

I hate to bear bad news but I don't think there is anything you can really do. I am not aware of any way to make 'chat' and 'shout' stop short of its normal ranges, and all the other problems are handled for the whole sim at once, so you can't really protect or isolate your property from the casino's...

About the only thing I can suggest right now is you can at least monitor and see how bad things are. Under the View menu, select View Sim Statistics (that might not be the exact wording, I can't get inworld at the moment. -- it's in the same area as View Property Lines).

Under the simulator statistics, watch for Sim FPS, Physics FPS, and Time Dilation. Another thing to look at is number of scripts, and script IPS. IPS is (i think) instructions per second). These things all together give you a sense of how the simulator is running. FPS above 40 is good, time dilation above 0.9 is good.

If you see the numbers in there being persistently bad, try contacting live help and ask them to investigate, and if necessary, reboot the sim. This might not fix things long-term, but short term it could help. Who knows, if the sim is being rebooted once or twice a day, the casino operator might leave... every reboot kicks everybody out for a few minutes.

-Atashi

Not that this will do much to help your problem - but you really don't need to keep the lantern and fireplace scripts running if they're just there to make the flame move. You can even take them out and the flames will still appear to be moving.

Other than that - no there's not much I'm aware of that you can do about the script hog moving in next door and lagging you to a crawl. Hmm, you could see if they are doing anything AR-able like displaying porn and try to get rid of them that way. But things change so fast here they might not stay for long, especially if the lag is that bad for them too.

Sorry to hear about your troubles. the good thing is, the casino will probably shrivel up and die in a month or 2...not that thats gonna help you now.

if you do decide to move, you may look into a covenant based sim. Most covenants don't allow businesses.

Just a thought Nectere, have you met the casino owner? I just wondered if they were aware they have a shed load of lagging scripts bringing performance to its knees?

Nectere - The New SIMs are unknown land and that is why they sell for much cheaper than a PRIME old sim. My suggestion for you is to find a SIM that has existing businesses or residential parcels where people live and look for a spot where you can setup your own home. This way you know your neighbours and you know your SIM well. You may have to pay a bit more than a new SIM but the land is well worth it!

Well, they aren’t doing anything wrong and they have just as much right to be there as I do and have the roughly the same size prop (not that prop size matters). This is I believe their 4th casino from what I have investigated. However, no one is ever there, it’s just an empty casino with a whole bunch of laggy machines lol (so far, I hate to think what it will be like when people actually frequent the place since they allow scripts but not objects to run on the parcel) In all actuality it’s a nice looking casino with an area adjacent for patrons to sit by a pool, with a waterfall etc so its not even an eyesore or anything (not that that would matter) and there isn’t any AR-able things occurring or being advertised there that I can see or determine.

I have considered talking to the casino owner but it’s been my experience thus far that business owners who don’t frequent their own business couldn’t care less about the sim its in just as long as its profitable over time. A bit cynical, but in truth I have only found one business owner that actually cared about his casino/or other business and the patrons in it to date (early dealings of a newb who likes to explore lol).

Something I have seen, on certain “shields” (weapons related) is a bounce effect which bounces an incoming push back to the pusher – now I am in no way advocating disrupting their devices – however it does seem that if you can bounce back an incoming projectile/script with one of these devices so that it never reaches you – is it then possible to create a bounce back script that disallows the permeation of scripts with a scripted fence or wall or something to that effect? Just an arrant thought really…something like an anti listening device – I know I am still stuck on trying to filter out their lag, because truthfully, I really, really like my place. Then again, if its not client side that is causing it and its server side no bounce back would make a difference and only cause more lag in the end.

I am strongly considering getting an island since they are less upfront than a sim in auction unless I could find enough about sim classes etc to buy one privately – but with sim auctions in the 3k range that’s just too much to lay out for a sim you are going to keep and not flip. I am not interested in renting from someone else as I have some plans I would eventually like to pursue business wise and need the space and freedom to do it. So I can either see who is standing last in my current sim which I am quite fond of, or make a go of it with my own sim. I haven’t decided yet really, I suppose it’s a matter of wait and see at this point, but I think come April if things aren’t any better I will be on the market to buy (and sell off my places).

Nectere, I've discovered in my four months that a lot can happen in that time. I've revisited favourite spots to find they've either closed or moved, many gone completely. A neighbour on forum just today has informed me that a local eyesore has gone.
If said casino is that little used the owner may well throw their hands in the air at the tier fee and sell.
Always good to wait and watch .. always something else to do

First thing I'd do is try to figure out why the sim is now lagging - do you know that it's listening scripts or are you assuming that? There's not a ton of info you can get on mainland sims but you can, sometimes, get a good general idea of what's gone wrong. Showing that you've done some research and tried to identify the problem will help if you take the issue to the casino owner or to LL.. Post the sim name if you want and I'll take a look at it later tonight if somebody doesn't beat me to it.

Horsa is the sim name

Just spent about 30 minutes in Horsa watching the stats and it seems to be behaving pretty well right now...

1. Sim fps is usually at 44-45 sim fps with occasional drops down to 40; physics fps seems to track along pretty well
   
2. Time dilation aways over .95
   
3. Texture download was at +500kbps for a solid 15 minutes
   
4. There's been 30-35 people here the whole time, all but 3-4 at the casino; child agents <= 10
   
5. Ping sim/user aren't that close, usually around 90/125
   
6. 4800+ scripts with 480 active objects
   
7. Pending up/downloads almost always at 0 with d/l burping up to 1-2 infrequently
   
8. Agent updates hovers around where it should be at 20/second
   
9. The casino owns 1/5 of the sim (unless they have extra plots I didn't see)
   
10. I counted 36 camping chairs inside the main casino, though only a few were in use

Time stats aren't too interesting when a server is behaving. Mostly script time but that's not too bad at ~15ms/frame. Agent time is peaking around 3ms which seems a little high but probably normal for a sim with 30 people on it.

There's a crow flying around, doing lots of updates/second but it's not owned by the casino and it's just doing position updates - probably not a big deal. I don't see any other objects that look like they might be causing problems but, again, there's not a lot you can tell on a mainland sim.

I dont think the problem is scripts - I think the problem is that there are just too many people there and too many and/or too many detailed textures. Mainland sims max out at around 40 people.

Since they own about 1/5 of the sim and are consuming most of its resources, you'd be justified in (nicely) asking the owner to cut down on the number of people they have in there. If they have over 40 in that one place and you can't get to your land because the sim is full and you've asked them to reduce their load, you'd be justified in AR'ing them.

The crow is mine - do you think its an issue? I have the large fenced in castle on the hill next door to the casino so I have roughly 1/5 of the sim as well (I have the NW corner). Thanks for checking it out.

Yesterday afternoon I went there and it was crawling, but then last night I popped back on and it was fine relatively speaking, I sat and watched the stats for a few minutes then went to another prop thats still pretty quiet in another sim to do some work as I need to motor through and not get tripped up on anything.

For now I will just wait and see I guess - thanks again

Yep. I saw that it was yours..

I don't think the crow is causing too many problems.. You can try deleting it when the sim starts to hurt but I don't think it will help too much.

I just saw something in the Police Blotter that I've never seen before..

Yeah, it's just a warning but it's a step in the right direction, IMO.

You should look at how many people are in casino camping chairs the next time the lag gets bad. If the place is full of people sitting around in these things, contact the owner and (politely) ask that they reduce the number of camping spots. If they don't, AR them.